Patching up the peace in symbolic Selma:
Fitts, Allston III
PATCHING UP THE PEACE IN SYMBOLIC SELMA RACIAL CONFLICTS STILL SMOLDER ALSTON FITTS III This past spring the Alabama River reached its highest level in a hundred years. Selma was one of several...
...To her the issue is not simply a local dispute over Roussell's abilities or the makeup of the school board, but one of national significance: "the right to an equal education...
...In a year full of bitter ironies, plans to stage a biracial celebration of the progress Selma had made since 1965 led to the town's bitterest racial confrontation in twenty-five years...
...Well, last year two visitors from the North, a priest and a nun, told me it was a scandal that Selma's black Catholics were having their native spirituality contaminated by association with whites...
...Attorney J.L...
...after all, one of them pointed out, the superintendent had not been sexually abusing students...
...But hostilities had already begun to flare earlier in the fall with a dispute over how best to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the city's involvement in the voting rights movement of 1965...
...The mayor's vision might have suited Selma's older black preachers and teachers, but it was promptly challenged by the young activists associated with Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Williams, and Pettaway, the largest black law firm in Alabama...
...Two years ago they were having financial problems...
...her husband Hank Sanders, Selma's first black state senator since Reconstruction...
...Roussell's administrative shortcomings, and not his race, provoked their refusal to renew his contract for another three years...
...While "Chestnut Sanders" was not significantly involved in the 1965 protests (the Sanders family didn't arrive in Selma until five years later), the firm regards itself as the keeper of the flame...
...munity activist regarded by her admirers as another Joan of Arc, and by her opponents as the Wicked Witch of the South...
...Norward Roussell...
...The firm vowed to rally five thousand demonstrators from across the country to protest at the reopening of Selma's public schools on August 20...
...They threatened to "close this city down" unless Roussell's contract was extended and the six white members of the school board fired...
...When some of the "Raiders" were arrested after a melee outside the mayor's office, they promptly dubbed the incident "Bloody Monday...
...Selma was one of several Alabama towns that were hit by the flood...
...The actual twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in March came as something of an anticlimax...
...The disruptions destroyed most of Dr...
...Reese, the local leader of the 1965 marches, and Mrs...
...Roussell's remaining support in the white community...
...and her brother-in-law Perry Varner, one of the county's first black commissioners since Reconstruction...
...That movement had a clear goal, this one has half a dozen, and seems to be striking out in all directions...
...It's like William Butler Yeats said after the Irish Revolution, that Ireland had its freedom and the poor were still breaking stones...
...Sanders the opportunity to relive 1965 by filling the TV screens with shots of black demonstrators confronting Alabama troopers...
...Some Northern whites have also lost faith in integration, he says...
...Roussell worked out a financial settlement with the school board and resigned...
...Sanders had stated previously that her people would never accept anyone chosen by whites, "even if they bring Martin Luther King back from the grave...
...Sanders and her followers were indignant at what they saw as Smitherman's plan to steal "their" celebration...
...as] important to black school children as learning to read or count...
...It was her suggestion that white Selmians play the part of George Wallace's state troopers and Sheriff Jim Clark's mounted posse...
...If the federal government could send troops so that eleven black kids could attend high school in Little Rock," asked manufacturer Otey Crisman, "can't it also send help so that five hundred white kids can attend Selma High...
...The "white flight" that began in February continued over the summer, with a number of white teachers joining a host of white students in their exodus...
...Mrs...
...The continued demonstrations have had a marked effect on the Selma schools...
...To some spectators this eerie vision seemed grimly appropriate for a town haunted by racial conflicts the city fathers hoped had been left behind in the 1960s...
...While the protestors failed to "close Selma down," they did succeed in closing its schools for a week...
...In turn, Smitherman charged that "Queen Rose" and her fellow lawyers were deliberately provoking a racial confrontation in order to get control of the school board and its $18 million budget...
...Recently, though, people have been scolding us for having one of the few integrated parishes in Selma," he says...
...for that reason, he ranks having "a black superintendent in Selma...
...King Joe" was moved by jealousy of Roussell, they said, because the educator made more money ($80,000 a year) than the mayor ($64,000...
...He is regarded in the profession as a brilliant (Continued on page 514) (Continued from page 480) but abrasive educator...
...As a climax to this extravaganza, she said, there would be a re-enactment of "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, when nonviolent demonstrators had been beaten and gassed at the Edmund Pettus Bridge...
...Efforts were made to work out a compromise between the two groups, allowing both the symposium and the re-creation of the march...
...To Chestnut, the loss of such role models is a grievous thing...
...Sanders went a step further by denouncing the manufacturer as a "real Communist...
...But the Sanders group responded like pre-Vatican II Catholics...
...The white board members insisted that Dr...
...The voting rights movement was led by ministers, this is led by lawyers," Woolley said...
...White community leaders expressed distress over this "re-segregation" of Selma High, and a number of black moderates (including Pastor Reese) urged whites not to abandon the public schools...
...Several of his black employees walked out and publicly charged him with "hatred for black people...
...She has called for the passage of a constitutional amendment to outlaw "racial tracking" in schools...
...Indeed, some Selma blacks, like district Judge Nathanael Walker, fondly recall "the good old days" at all-black R.B...
...Crisman's public appeals for integration, which back in 1965 would have probably won him the epithet "nigger-lover" and economic reprisals from white supremacists, evoked a very different response in 1990...
...Elmwood, the city's oldest cemetery, presented a striking and grisly spectacle: a number of recently buried coffins emerged from the mud and were seen bobbing about on top of the waves...
...Selma's private schools ought to give Rose an award for being the best recruiter they've ever had," observed city judge Vaughan Russell...
...This Selma-based firm (locally known as "Chestnut Sanders") was founded in 1971 and led the fight to establish black control of the majority-black counties in West Central Alabama...
...Chestnut, whose law firm filed suit after suit during the '70s to force total integration of the Selma school system, now shrugs when warned that "white flight" may create an all-black system for Selma as it has for surrounding counties...
...The white board members then chose veteran black educator James Carter as interim superintendent, raising hopes that a time of community healing might be at hand...
...Chestnut Sanders grimly agreed to drop its lawsuits against the city and the school board, and the city in turn dropped over one hundred thirty criminal charges pending against "Rose's Raiders...
...Disruptions at the high school and middle schools created panic among many parents, who began withdrawing their kids from the public schools.-Hundreds of white kids found refuge in Selma's private academies, and a surprising number of blacks transferred to the county school system...
...Woolley, who as a white minister took part in the original march, was not impressed by the similarities between 1965 and 1990...
...However, this has not shaken the faith of Mrs...
...Chestnut Sanders's response to the Carter appointment was to have warrants sworn out for the arrest of the white school board members, on charges of having made the selection in an illegal secret meeting...
...Thus it is no wonder Dr...
...Norward Roussell provoked indignation from most Selma blacks...
...If Dr...
...In late April, Dr...
...The Sanders group then appointed several young whites to serve on their committee, but the dispute left a bad taste in many mouths...
...I'm very proud of Queen of Peace, which is 55 percent white, 45 percent black, and one of the most beautiful, vibrant parishes I know of...
...The school board's refusal to extend the contract of Dr...
...Psychiatrist David Hodo had organized a biracial group, Citizens to Save Our Schools, in support of Roussell...
...The demonstrators' greatest weakness, according to Dallas Times reporter Bryan Woolley, was their lack of an obvious villain like Sheriff Clark...
...Sanders's disciples that they are in fact the victims of a sinister conspiracy...
...Since black students made up 70 percent of total enrollment, they regarded this demand as a simple matter of "majority rule...
...The black board members dismissed the complaints about Roussell's dictatorial style as "nit-picking...
...After a week of intense negotiations, black and white leaders agreed to set up a "rotating majority" on the school board-with the board's first black majority taking power as soon as all school board litigation was resolved...
...Selma's schools were already 90 percent black, announced Commissioner Varner, "and may soon be 100 percent...
...King had stayed during the marches...
...This suggestion was coldly received by Selma whites...
...Sullivan Jackson, the schoolteacher in whose home Dr...
...The firm includes Rose Gaines Sanders, a charismatic comALSTON FTTTS III is director of information for the Edmundite Missions in Selma, Alabama...
...This central Alabama town of twenty-six thousand has seen almost daily demonstrations since December 21,1989, when the Selma School Board voted along racial lines not to renew the contract of the city's first black superintendent, Dr...
...And Montgomery's African-American bookstore, Roots & Wings, holds regular lectures on the "disadvantages of desegregation...
...Only fifty demonstrators showed up outside Selma High on the 20th, and on the next day there were none...
...They asked me how on earth the Edmundites could justify serving an integrated parish...
...The re-enactment of "Bloody Sunday" with fake tear gas was held, but for a smaller crowd than had been originally expected...
...Roussell were dismissed, she told her followers, their children would not be allowed to take algebra or foreign languages...
...Mayor Joseph T. Smitherman and the Chamber of Commerce publicly announced plans for a symposium on the significance of Selma's role in the movement, inviting back the newsmen who had covered "Bloody Sunday" and the events of the Selma-to-Montgomery March...
...The troopers, many of whom were black, disappointed their taunters by responding with smiles rather than tear gas...
...They launched boycotts of the leading local bank and various local gas stations (all owned by whites with relatives on the school board), picketed the local newspaper (for "unfair coverage"), pitched tents on the lawn outside City Hall, and disrupted meetings of such majority-white groups as the American Cancer Society...
...Their repeated threats and denunciations finally persuaded the mayor's group to withdraw from the field altogether...
...To "Rose's Raiders," as the demonstrators came to be called, their crusade was in part a re-enactment of the 1965 struggle over voting rights...
...I attended a segregated school system," he says, "and so did Mayor Smitherman, and we both survived...
...Back in the '60s, a few of our Yankee supporters were very critical of us for having set up separate schools and hospitals for blacks when we first came to Alabama in 1937...
...Smitherman hoped to showcase the town's progress since 1965, notably its integrated schools (70 percent black, 30 percent white as of September 1989), its black judge and state senator, and so forth...
...Our only power is the power to disrupt," said state Senator Sanders, and he and his fellow protesters used that power freely...
...They denounced the mayor as racist and his black appointees as "lackeys," and threatened to bring in demonstrators from around the country to disrupt the symposium...
...James Carter may not be a resurrected King, but he proved remarkably effective in rallying biracial support for the schools...
...With her characteristic flair, Mrs...
...Back in 1971 the archbishop of Mobile instructed us to merge our black mission with the local white parish, and we did so...
...At this point the city's black businessman approached Mayor Smitherman to seek a settlement of the school board crisis...
...The charge bewildered many Selmians, who asked how such a conspiracy could operate when the principals and guidance counselors at most Selma schools are black...
...They announced their intention to boycott all board meetings until and unless Roussell's contract was extended and blacks were given control of the board...
...now their classrooms are bulging and they're having to hire new teachers...
...And a campaign against supposed remnants of segregation in the city's public schools seems to be leading to the resegregation of those schools...
...but once his former white supporters turned against him a year after his arrival, most black teachers, students, and politicians began circling their wagons in defense of "their" superintendent...
...No Hollywood stars showed up for the benefit concert, and the projected voting rights museum for Selma is still only a dream...
...In a bizarre reversal of the school integration crises of the 1960s, it was the white parents who came forward to ask for federal troops to protect their children's right to attend public schools...
...State troops were in fact sent to re-open the schools, giving Mrs...
...Sanders denies this charge vehemently...
...He succeeded in setting up a biracial committee that included the Rev...
...The Sanders group quickly assumed a leading role in the protests, identifying their old foe Smitherman as the villain behind the scenes...
...Julius Brown, the first black president of Wallace Community College, proclaimed August 27 "a day for dancing...
...e, proclaimed August 27 "a day for dancing...
...Mrs...
...By week's end Carter smilingly announced that "white flight" had been brought under control-1,066 of the 5,328 kids in school, or 20 percent, were still white...
...According to her, the Selma schools had instituted a "racial tracking" system in 1971 to confine 95 percent of the black students at Selma High to the lowest level while allowing over 90 percent of whites to take high level college preparatory courses...
...So Selma's racial conflicts of 1990 ended not in violence and federal intervention, as those of 1965 had, but in a negotiated settlement worked out by local leaders...
...At first he was not universally popular in the black community...
...they were the one true committee, and anybody wishing to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary had to come to their church (First Baptist) and submit to their authority...
...Sanders spoke of Holly wood stars who had agreed to come to Selma for a benefit concert to raise money for a voting rights museum to be erected beside the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and a formal banquet to honor the veterans of the 1965 marches...
...I think it's the continuing poverty that has disillusioned so many people with integration," says Father Roger LaCharite, my colleague and director of the Selma-based Edmundite Missions...
...It also set the stage for the bitter dispute that erupted last December 21...
...It had been working toward its own vision of a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration for months...
...Selma High School finally released statistics showing that most of its students, black and white, were receiving the standard diploma, and a majority of those receiving the advanced diploma were black...
...The protest leaders, however, responded with indifference...
...he watched in anguish as his group was scattered by the storm of increasing racial polarization...
...Hudson High, when all the teachers were blacks, the class valedictorian and the homecoming queen were always black, and so forth...
...Roussell, who is from New Orleans, was hired by a majority-white board in 1987...
Vol. 117 • September 1990 • No. 15
